Best Mediterranean Restaurants in Santa Cruz

Our food was excellent with the exception of the Olive Oil cake. I would not recommend it. It’s a dense cake, but grainy and dry. Oh well. We especially loved the Brussels sprouts and kebab.

We make a 75 mile round-trip from San Jose to Santa Cruz to eat dinner every Friday night. Been doing weekly since 2018 (pandemic disrupted the frequency but still did take out during that time). Our focus is on the desserts and our favorites are great - chocolate fantasy sundae, warm brownie, sin cake, truffles, Victoria hot chocolate with oat milk - these are chocolate artisan designs with more cacao emphasis than sugar and chocolate aficionados like us really enjoy it. Dinners are great as well - my longest go-to dish was Oaxaqueño Mo'le chicken plate - literally ate that dish for YEARS from 2018 to 2023. Then I 'discovered' their hand-rolled fettucine and salmon dishes - those are my new go-to dishes for 2023 onward. We are not drinkers so can't comment on the choices involving alcohol. Lastly, I read some of the more negative reviews here and respectfully disagree with most of them. The puzzling one is the recurring mention of 'dry' focaccia bread. We get that every week AND we were one of first to enjoy their switch to house-made focaccia bread. I do not find this to be dry at all - for me it's fresh and has just the right amount of moist texture. However, I understand others have different thresholds of dry. Regardless, this restaurant clearly is our favorite as we vote with our frequency of visits from San Jose for years.

Fantastic food, service and ambiance. This intimate restaurant is a gem.

Service was excellent. We trusted the waiters opinion and he did not disappoint. Unfortunately, the noise was a bit distracting. The food was exiting- new flavor combination, almost a fusion of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean.

Our party of 6 had an amazing Christmas Eve Dinner there, everything was spectacular and we will return someday soon !